Four months after selecting De Soto, Kansas as the location of its future EV battery plant, Panasonic broke ground on the $4 billion facility, an important step as the US aims to increase the number of electric vehicle batteries that are assembled domestically.
The facility will mainly supply batteries toTesla, which is the number one seller of electric vehicles in the world and is about to begin production of its Cybertruck at the end of the year. The factory will increase production of the 2170 cylindrical batteries that power the company's Model 3 and Model Y vehicles.
The next- generation 4680 cells are being worked on by Panasonic andTesla. With the hope that the company will be able to start installing them in its cars very soon, Musk said during the most recent earnings call that production has tripled as compared to Q3 2021.
The factory will quickly ramp up production of the 2170 cylindrical batteries.
Up to 4,000 jobs are expected to be created at the facility. The first positions are expected to be filled in the year 2023. The Japanese company builds batteries in the US.
The $7,500-per-vehicle tax credit requires electric vehicles to be assembled in the US in order to be eligible. There are concerns that the new tax credits could discriminate against companies without US based manufacturing facilities, but they have begun to make moves to localize production in the US.
The three new Ford battery plants will be able to produce 129GWh a year.
The new factory in De Soto is expected to be larger than the ones in Nevada. In February of this year, Panasonic announced that it would begin mass-produced batteries for the electric car maker.
Panasonic didn't pick Kansas out of the goodness in it's heart. A $500 million investment tax credit is one of the incentives the company is set to receive.
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